“Chaos was the law of nature; Order was the dream of [hu]man.”
~ Henry Adams
Chaos is constant. Leaders thrive on chaos. The desire to solve the equation to create effectiveness and produce to satisfy the consumer and achieve the goals of the organization are a few positive characteristics of good leaders.
Great leaders not only thrive, they are also highly cognitive and intentional in their strategic approach to create measurable value, growth and opportunity. They are inclusive and diverse in their team approach; they have strong self-worth; and they have a strong vision, challenging and realistic goals, clear and simplified processes and practices to follow, trusted communications up, down and across the organization and sensible and ethical policies to guide decision making.
Often when leaders struggle, they experience and behave in limiting and detrimental way, such as:
- Not delegating or struggling with delegating
- Lacking systems thinking skills
- Appearing inexperienced
- Communicating poorly and without clarity
- Not managing their energy and lacking priorities
- Lacking trust in the team
- Relying on personal intervention
- Not empowering their team
- Lacking vision
- Not establishing rules, procedure, roles & responsibilities
- Micromanaging and controlling
When great leaders are naturally interactive and interdependent, the internal and external factors, market elements, and their teams portray the following key attributes:
- Effectively communicating and coaching
- Collaborating and performing
- Implementing simplified and effective processes, policies, and systems to support the initiative
- Sharing resources and information, and honoring the impact
- Having strong emotional intelligence and showing care for people
If your team is struggling, kickstart the change process with these 8 tips:
- Do it for the right reasons – Make sure you ultimately are creating value for both the internal and external customers.
- Perform a team assessment – Make sure you have all the right people, and the right people in the right roles.
- Study, learn and map out how and why things work – Analyze, test, and document the “how and why” of the systems and processes. Simplify the processes.
- Culture – Create a positive growth culture of highly empowered and motivated people working together to achieve and exceed expectations. Invest in your team. Create a culture of continuous learning, mentoring and coaching. Offer the opportunity for professional development to strengthen and build strong communications skills, conflict skills, collaboration and team building skills, and managing your energy and priorities.
- Systems – Acquire, install, and integrate new systems to ensure quality and success.
- Communicate, communicate, communicate – Create simple and effective systems for reporting status, discussing assumptions and unknowns, mitigating impacts, and for team development. Plan for offsite meetings, conferences, trade shows, conventions and other events where teams may further connect and develop conduits for strong team communications.
- Monitor and measure – When systems and processes are failing, ask your customers and team for input, for they are key to resolving the challenges. Communicate in an honest and timely manner all key data to support changes, impact, and progress.
- Recognize and Honor – Ask your team how they are doing; say THANK YOU; and show appreciation authentically and consistently. Do not play favorites.
Note to keep in the back of your mind: Change is constant, so afford your team the flexibility to adapt – the rules, learning, behaviors, the processes and such. If you have people who love what they do, understand and show competency, and are engaged in the progress – then you are leading with a systems thinking approach, and the outcomes will reflect accordingly.
If not…Let’s Talk!
Harris Whitesell Consulting, L.L.C. is a global consulting company. We are on a mission to help successful people and organizations become even more successful. We provide excellence in management advising, developing and coaching. We earn our customer’s trust.
Call us today to talk about how we may help you create measurable value, growth and opportunity for you, your team and your organization.
